Hands of Steel

My eight fingers are wounded from hand-washing my children's clothes on Boxing Day. Clusters of tiny skinless wounds are causing me immense pain. Much more than this, I am ashamed that doing laundry can actually wound me. I am thinking of the washing-woman who comes to my house twice a week and does heaps of laundry with such ease. I should increase her wages, now that I understand what she is saving me from.

Most of us in Uganda do not have washing-machines or laundry-driers. We hand-wash our dirty clothes. We also hang them out on metal lines or gauze wires or sisal-strings to dry in the sun. Before hanging them to sun-dry, we wring them with our hands to squeeze out as much water as we can.

I grew up hand-washing my clothes - mostly in boarding school. We all did this over the weekend, often spreading our clothes out in the green lawns to dry under the brilliant equatorial sun. And then I graduated from university and learnt about dobbies who washed clothes for a fee. I also learnt about dry cleaners who cost an arm and a leg to clean one coat or one skirt. And when I went overseas for graduate education, I learnt about washing-machines and driers. I returned home and itinerary washing-men or washing-women were the in thing. I have had a washing-woman do my family's laundry for the last donkey's years. And so my fingers are now too dainty to do the needful. Shame on me and other career-women who use our fingers to type on laptops but not for housework. Kudos for all washing-men and washing-women who save our hands from dirty laundry.

Stella Nyanzi

To all that are struggling with depression,

I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are or where you’re from. I don’t know your background, nor do I know your unique circumstances. I don’t know if your depression is the result of your genetic disposition, or if it is caused by something terrible that happened to you in your past. I don’t know if you’re going through a major change in your life or if you’re struggling to cope with the loss of a loved one.

There are a lot of things about your fight with depression that I simply don’t know.

But let me tell you a few things that I do know.

I know how it feels.

I know how it feels to have no one understand what you’re going through.

I know how it feels to feel alone in a crowded room; to feel like you’re putting on a “happy mask” in public, only to feel like you’re slipping further and further into an unsolvable despair.

I know how it feels to lose interest in things that once brought you joy and happiness; for foods to lose their taste, for nature to lose its beauty, and for the world to lose its color.

I know how it feels to want to be left alone while simultaneously (and desperately) yearn for someone to reach out and help you.

I know how it feels to do everything—absolutely everything—to try to fill the growing emptiness inside of you. I know how it feels to try to self-medicate and mute the pain with anything and everything: excessive sleep, television, foods, pain killers, or other addictions.

I know how it feels to fall to your knees and beg God to free you from the terrible loneliness of the darkness in your mind—only to feel like the ground has opened beneath you, plunging you into an even darker abyss.

I know how it feels because I’ve suffered from depression since I was a kid. In 2006, my depression culminated in a suicide attempt that very nearly claimed my life.

I know how depression feels and I’m intimately aware of the thoughts and feelings that lead to suicide.

But I also know a few other things. And this is why I’m writing to you.

I know there is hope.

Just as night is defeated by the dawn, or as the winter is conquered by the spring, or as the darkness is dominated by any degree of light, I know that you can make it through this.

And what’s more, I know that you can be a better person because of it.

Our lives are a journey on the earth. As we move forward, we will not only figuratively experience the geography of life: the exhilaration of high mountains, the tranquility of calm meadows, the isolation of treacherous canyons, but we also experience the seasons of life: the hope of spring, the abundance of summer, the harvest of autumn, and yes, the darkness and depression of winter.

Just as we continuously experience the change in seasons, we will also experience the contrast between canyons and mountains many times in our lives. Some winters and canyons last longer than others, it is true. But as someone who frequently struggles with depression, I can promise you that the springs do come and that there are paths out of the canyons and into the light.

I said that you are going to be a better person as a result of your depression. I meant it. Having dealt with depression for over twenty years, I can say with confidence that my depression has given me an incomparable appreciation for life.

If you move forward while holding onto the knowledge that the sun will rise in your soul, I assure you that one day, you will stand at the summit of a figurative mountain and look back on your life’s journey. You will see your canyons of depression for what they were and realize that they taught you things you otherwise couldn’t have learned. And, to your utter amazement, you will see how your experiences with depression, dark and painful as they were, only added to the overall beauty of your life.

For aren’t the most beautiful vistas the ones that are filled with mountains, valleys, canyons, and wondrous variety?

To all who are struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts: you are not alone. We are all on this journey together. I promise you that there is hope. Let us reach out to one another and walk together in the sunlight.

- Seth Adam

One More Night

Eve - which is also called 'kiro more', 'esigadde', 'penultimate night', etc etc - has always been my sort of thing. I love that one last full day before departing. I get high on the excitement that closure brings. And today I am in full 'kiro more' mode.

That oldie 'One more night' is playing over and over again through my laptop speakers. My suitcases and bags are spread all over the floor in different stages of packing. The book shelves are getting bare as I return books to different libraries and people. The wardrobe and drawers have been emptied of my what-nots. My last few contents in the shared fridge-freezer are defrosting for that last baking or giving away. My food cabinets were emptied this morning into heaps and bundles to give away. The shredder is working as I destroy written evidence of my presence, that is no longer wanted. End-term shredding reminds me of bonfire night in my primary school when fools burnt up their exercise books to mark the end of an academic year.

In previous years, I would climb up a chair firmly placed on a desk in order to scribble onto a corner of the ceiling 'Stella Nyanzi was here'. Right now I am rethinking this ritual of closure. I feel I am now too old to climb up another chair placed on the desk I have been working at all this while. I look at my children's pictures firmly pasted on the walls around me. These pictures have motivated me to keep working, stay the course, read longer, write more and be productive. I will bring the pictures down after all the other chores. I am looking forward to going back home to my people after three long months away. Tomorrow morning, I will be homebound. The excitement is killing me.

Stella Nyanzi

The Real Truth About 'Boring' Men -- and the Women Who Live With Them

So not every guy proposes with lip syncing, rolling cameras, and a choreographed entourage.

Yeah -- so what if your dad didn't?

He just pulled that beat-up Volkswagon Rabbit of his over in front of Murray Reesor's hundred acre farm right there where Grey Township meets Elma Township, pulled out a little red velvet box, and whispered it in the snowy dark: "Marry me?"

"He didn't even get down on one knee or anything?"

You boys ask it incredulously, like there's some kind of manual for this kind of holy.

And I've got no qualms in telling you no. No, he didn't even get down on one knee -- it was just a box, a glint of gold in the dark, two hallowed words and a question mark.

"Boring."

I know. When you've watched a few dozen mastermind proposals on youtube, shared them with their rolling credits on Facebook, marveling at how real romance has an imagination like that.

Can I tell you something, sons?

Romance isn't measured by how viral your proposal goes. The Internet age may try to sell you something different, but don't ever forget that viral is closely associated with sickness -- so don't ever make being viral your goal.

Your goal is always to make your Christ-focus contagious -- to just one person.

It's more than just imagining some romantic proposal.

It's a man who imagines washing puked-on sheets at 2:30 a.m., plunging out a full and plugged toilet for the third time this week, and then scraping out the crud in the bottom screen of the dishwasher -- every single night for the next 37 years without any cameras rolling or soundtrack playing -- that's imagining true romance.

The man who imagines slipping his arm around his wife's soft, thickening middle age waistline and whispering that he couldn't love her more.... who imagines the manliness of standing bold and unashamed in the express checkout line with only maxi pads and tampons because someone he loves is having an unexpected Saturday morning emergency.

The man who imagines the coming decades of a fluid life -- her leaking milky circles through a dress at Aunt Ruth's birthday party, her wearing thick diaper-like Depends for soggy weeks after pushing a whole human being out through her inch-wide cervix, her bleeding through sheets and gushing amniotic oceans across the bathroom floor and the unexpected beauty of her crossing her legs every time she jumps on the trampoline with the kids.

The real romantics imagine greying and sagging and wrinkling as the deepening of something sacred.

Because get this, kids -- how a man proposes isn't what makes him romantic. It's how a man purposes to lay down his life that makes him romantic.

And a man begins being romantic years before any ring -- romance begins with only having eyes for one woman now -- so you don't go giving your eyes away to cheap porn. Your dad will say it sometimes to me, a leaning over -- "I am glad that there's always only been you." Not some bare, plastic-surgeon-scalpel-enhanced pixels ballooning on a screen, not some tempting flesh clicked on in the dark, not some photo-shopped figment of cultural beauty that's basically a lie.

The real romantics know that stretch marks are beauty marks and that differently shaped women fit into the different shapes of men's souls and that real romance is really sacrifice.

I know -- you're thinking, "Boring."

Can you see it again -- how your grandfather stood over your grandmother's grave and brushed away his heart leaking without a sound down his cheeks?

Fifty boring years. Fifty unfilmed years of milking 70 cows, raising six boys and three girls, getting ready for sermon every Sunday morning, him helping her with her zipper. Fifty boring years of arguing in Dutch and making up in touching in the dark, 50 boring years of planting potatoes and weeding rows on humid July afternoons, 50 boring years of washing the white Corel dishes and turning out the light on the mess -- till he finally carried her in and out of the tub and helped her pull up her Depends.

Don't ever forget it:

The real romantics are the boring ones -- they let another heart bore a hole deep into theirs.

Be one of the boring ones. Pray to be one who get 50 boring years of marriage -- 50 years to let her heart bore a hole deep into yours.

Let everyone do their talking about 50 shades of grey, but don't let anyone talk you out of it: commitment is pretty much black and white. Because the truth is, real love will always make you suffer. Simply commit: Who am I willing to suffer for?

Who am I willing to take the reeking garbage out for and clean out the gross muck ponding at the bottom of the fridge? Who am I willing to listen to instead of talk at? Who am I willing to hold as they grow older and realer? Who am I willing to die a bit more for every day? Who am I willing to make heart-boring years with? Who am I willing to let bore a hole into my heart?

Get it: Life -- and marriage proposals -- isn't not about one-upmanship -- it's about one-downmanship. It's about the heart-boring years of sacrifice and going lower and serving. It's not about how well you perform your proposal. It's about how well you let Christ perform your life.

Sure, go ahead, have fun, make a ridiculously good memory and we'll cheer loud: propose creatively -- but never forget that what wows a woman and woos her is you how you purpose to live your life.

I'm praying, boys -- be Men. Be one of the 'boring" men -- and let your heart be bore into. And know there are women who love that kind of man.

The kind of man whose romance isn't flashy -- because love is gritty.
The kind of man whose romance isn't about cameras -- because it's about Christ.
The kind of man whose romance doesn't have to go viral -- because it's going eternal.

No, your dad did not get down on one knee when he proposed -- because the romantic men know it's about living your whole life on your knees.

There are Fridays. And the quiet romantics who will take out the garbage without fanfare. There will be the unimaginative calendar by the fridge, with all it's scribbled squares of two lives being made one. The toilet seat will be left predictably up. The sink will be resigned to its load of last night's dishes.

And there is now and the beautiful boring, the way two lives touch and go deeper into time with each other.

The clock ticking passionately into decades.

Ann Voskamp

Adopted from the Huff Post

Collateral damage

Collateral damage

Uganda wants to develop; construct roads, construct posh buildings. We have even cut taxes for our potential investors in order to make sure the place is turned into the United States. The only problem is, we are copying it all wrong and not preparing for the collateral damage. Think about 10-15 years ago where you used to stay, there was land, pitches to play with the neighbours, that is where talent was developed and friends were made. Today, we find the rich are building seven feet fences and buying PlayStations (well done you worked hard). The poor are in total misery because they are being packed into the worst of places, pollution, drugs, and yet again over taxed to develop the nation. Development means chasing hawkers, chapatti men, commuter taxis, where will one put all this idleness and unemployment. Clearly there is need to send people back to their actual homes; those from the South fly away, the westerns go and rare those cows. Am no prophet but if we don’t sit down and analyze development, country is going………………

Muhindi Jude

TEARDROP RAIN!!

TEARDROP RAIN!!

He won't dine with me any more, he's dining next to the Master!

Tell me how can I smile without my inspiration for laughter?

Haven't cried this much in a while, and yet more tears will come after.

I've lost a great friend, so far my life's biggest disaster.

He won't dine with me no more, he's dining next to the Master.

It's like a terrible dream, just want to get up and scream,

But that won't change anything, it wont bring back what I need.

My heart is in pain, real physical pain!

My eyes are clouding again, my cries are thunder to this teardrop rain.

If I could turn back the hands of time,

Like that R. Kelly line,

I'd bring back this friend of mine.

All these memories of back then,

got words flowing out my pen.

I'm hurting once again,

Sometimes I just wish I could pretend.

My heart is in pain, real physical pain!

My eyes are clouding again, my cries are thunder to this teardrop rain.

"I know how you feel," no, you do not know the half,

This feeling's surreal, you can't calculate it like maths.

My emotions are everywhere, they on the wall like a poster.

I'm taking a ride on this emotional roller coaster.

There's no amusement in this park,

my thoughts are lost in the dark.

You were a true friend to me, on my life, you left a Mark.

My heart is in pain, real physical pain!

My eyes are clouding again, my cries are thunder to this teardrop rain.

I could go on and on, have these words flow out like a song.

But no text, however long, can help me right this wrong.

I can't re-write history, or solve this mystery.

Life's full of inequities, it cant always be victory.

My heart is in pain, real physical pain!

My eyes are clouding again, my cries are thunder to this teardrop rain.

#1Month

By M.M

"Selfmade..." (To be or not to be)

Keeping in mind the many different brands
Purposes, designs and sizes
Destiny is a shoe...

Go ahead and wear it if it fits
And if it doesn't don't just keep it.
At least stuff it and wear it till it fits...

While God would rather prepare and teach
The devil opts to tempt, trick and lure
I guess the  blessings  of  the rich
Must be the lessons 2 the poor...

The search is fate. And such is life
That if you dare to root for all you can reach
Keeping ur intentions pure. Then success will be certain
And your destiny will not only be assured. But also selfmade...


By
Th' Suspe©t™

Kidron Nabende Googo

Wildly successful at work and family

A family is a group of parents and children living together in a household. In a typical African family, the man used to go to work while the woman stayed at home and took care of the home. In modern African times. The proverbial male bread winner is no more. Time after time, women have slowly crept into the world of work. There are so many women at work that you may think the male is an endangered species.

Women are not just turning up for work do the hours. Women are excelling at work too. In Uganda there is an ever growing list of women running and steering successful businesses and organizations. Allen Kagina, the current Commissioner General of Uganda Revenue Authority and Jennifer Musisi, the current Executive Director of Kampala Capital City Authority are a few examples that come to my mind.

How do these women play their God given family roles and still become wildly successful people? Success at work requires that you invest your time, your energy and in other circumstances your money at the work place. Success at work means that you will not leave office until that late submission is handed in. Success at work means that you will keep working until the solution has been found. Success at work means that you will further invest time and money in your studies to learn more and keep afloat in the job market.  Success at work does not come handed to you on a silver plate.

One way women have excelled at both family and work frontlines is by working smart. Women are natural jugglers but it takes extra smartness to juggle work and family. It is not uncommon for women to engage in businesses that are cultivated around the homestead. Businesses like selling foods, cakes, snacks, handmade crafts and clothes and cards are business that will not necessarily keep a woman away from the home.

In Uganda business like Dis n’ Dat (U) Ltd and the Mama Tendo Foundation were founded because a woman dared to juggle. They dared to juggle between family and business.

Alex Agaba

Where does this inferiority complex come from?

Again this morning, my neighbour is seated on her veranda applying cream to her face. She is becoming lighter and lighter by the day - from chocolate brown (call it black) to some sort of yellowish brown. Once again, the question occurs to me: Where does this dissatisfaction with our identity come from? Hating our colour, our hair, our cultural names, our languages, traditional wisdom, and so on!

It is partly a colonial and neo-colonial construct! For our colonial masters (missionaries too!) demonised everything about the African, and this was socialised into the conscience of the subjects so deeply that many had to hate themselves. We thus crafted an education system that produced and reproduced self-hate, self-devaluation, and a passion for migration to Bulaaya (overseas) - where civilisation and humanisation come from.

In early school we sung about London Bridge, even those of us that had neither seen nor found a bridge of relevance to our realities! We sang about men who went to America. We sang about missionaries who found us in darkness and saved us. But we never sang in appreciation of who we are and the wealth of our country and continent!

In the end, a people was produced who desired to run away from their country at any opportunity. A people with an urge to become whiter than the whites. A people that will wear full suit and necktie and fan themselves in the heat of the tropical sun - in the name of looking official. A people that will migrate with all their education to clean toilets in the West. A people that will look at anyone coming from the West as a god of sorts. A breed of shameless beggers. A people that will laugh at any of their own speaking broken English or broken French but not at those who speak broken mother tongue! Yes, this is the system that has produced my neighbour who has just finished scrubbing her face now.

Goodmorning my neighbour... I hope you don't hear what I think about you.

Ssentongo Jimmy Spire

Long Long Long under-arm hairs

Shaving body hairs is a culturally diverse practice. I was raised with the belief that other than the hair on the head, all other hairs were bad and dirty. And so shaving sticks, razor blades, shaving cream and waxing kits have been a firm part of my life.

I used to get really shocked when people in sleeveless shirts or blouses would raise their arms and reveal unkempt forests of hair, especially in a crowded bus or at the gymn. I would cringe my face at them and think many rude thoughts. Sometimes I stared pointedly at the said forests of hair. If the hair was blonde or brunette and straight it was really unslightly. If it was black and kinky with bushes of knotted curly kaweke it was really disgusting.

Having travelled and seen it all, I no longer get troubled about long bodily hairs. If someone wants long long long under-arm hairs or elsewhere, it is their life - their prerogative. However when I see long unkempt armpit hairs I still wonder about the length and tidiness of the other bodily hairs tacked further away from the public eye. And I wonder about how much money they budget for deodourants. This is important trivia...

Stella Nyanzi